RADNOR — When rain suspended play Thursday night, it left Radnor High School with a muddy field and a muddled situation. Middletown and Wayne were tied 6-6 entering the bottom of the fourth inning. They were tied in the Delco League Championship series 2-2 after Wayne won 9-8 earlier in the day in the completion of Game 4. For the second straight night, the two teams would resume play the next day. Or would they?

Middletown insists they can’t field a team on Friday, when the continuation is scheduled for 6 o’clock. The team is further hampered by two substitutions it made on Thursday. Players who leave a game can’t re-enter.

Wayne’s players say they can’t make a Saturday game. It comes down to who’s been more accommodating for whom to decide if and when the stalemate gets resolved. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s no clear answer for that either.

Lions manager Rusty Abrams argued that he went out of his way to make sure that Game 4 happened.

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“Penncrest is no longer available because fall high school sports started Monday. I had to find a home field,” he said. “None of Springfield’s were available. I asked Dan McShane and Jim Balk if we could use Chester’s field. They said we could. So we spent two days fixing the field up. I called (Wayne manager) Brian Fili to tell him about the switch and he said ‘My guys can’t make it’ at 5:45. So we agreed to start at 6. Only it started even later.

“Of course, the game got suspended because of darkness. It’s not the same, but it’s a similar predicament.”

Fili, on the other hand, said the change in location came too late for his players to adjust.

“Going to Chester hurt us,” he said. “We have guys who work and they couldn’t get over there in time.”

The dreaded “F” word was uttered more than once. It was mostly heard from the Lions dugout.

“That would stink, but there’s nothing we can do,” Fili said of a possible Middletown forfeit, which would give his team the title. “We just got to get it over.”

There hasn’t been a forfeited championship since 1985.

“There’s a reason the league allows you to roster 30 players. It’s for times like these,” Fili continued. “We don’t want (a forfeit) to happen. We want to play the game.”

Wayne is looking to restore its place as a league power. Middletown is searching for its first championship in its six years of existence.

There wouldn’t be talks of forfeiting if the two teams could settle things on the diamond. But neither has been able to pull away from the other.

On Wednesday, Wayne rallied from an 8-0 deficit to force extra innings. On Thursday, it was Middletown’s turn to come back. Matt Greskoff’s three-run home run, his second blast of the series, put Wayne up 6-2 in the second inning.

“I knew it was high, so he was either going to catch it or it was gone,” Greskoff said of his shot that cleared the right field fence.

What seemed like the last statement in a back and forth series was quickly nullified. Down four, the Lions pulled the game level in the third.

“This is the ninth time we’ve played them this season,” said Greskoff of the resilient opponent. “Everyone has seen everyone. There are no secrets.”

Andrew Abrams walked to start the inning and later scored after Brian Leon and Jim Quinn hit back-to-back singles. Joe Kelly’s double plated both Leon and Quinn, and Dave Dragone followed with a sacrifice fly to knot the score.

“Our guys are young,” said Abrams, who was 1-1 on the day with a sacrifice bunt and a single in addition to the walk. “Our oldest guy is 28. We have a lot of energy and that helps us.”

Abrams, pitching in relief of Brian Haley, shut down Wayne’s bats in the bottom of the third. Mark Washington escaped the top of fourth unscathed in what proved to be the last action of the evening. The umpires halted the game with rain starting to fall and darkness fast approaching.

“That’s the way baseball is,” Abrams said. “It’s so unpredictable.”

Wayne tied the series prior to Game 5’s start with a run in the eighth inning of Game 4. Brandon Menchaca scored on a fielding error, and Jeff Courter pitched a scoreless eighth to collect the save and extend the championship. Ashton Raines, who was on the mound in the seventh inning on Wednesday, earned the win.

“We’ve traded blows,” said Menchaca, who enjoyed a brief career in the minor leagues. “We go up, they come back. They go up, we come back. It shows the resiliency of both teams.”

It’s a series that never ends in a season that seemingly never ends. Just ask Greskoff.

“In early July, Paoli (his previous team) folded and I thought my season was over,” Wayne’s right-fielder said. “Now it’s over a month later and I’m still playing.”

Friday may finally cap the 2014 Delco League year, either through score or forfeit. Then again, who knows?